No. 41.

(Ad Scholas.)

VIA MEDIA.

No. II.

Laicus. I am come for some further conversation with you; or rather for another exposition of your views on Church matters. I am not well read enough to argue with you; nor, on the other hand, do I profess to admit all you say: but I want, if you will let me, to get at your opinions. So will you lecture, if I give the subjects?

Clericus. To lecture, as you call it, is quite beyond me, since at best I have but a smattering of reading in Church history. The more's the pity; though I have as much as a great many others; for ignorance of our historical position as Churchmen is one of the especial evils of the day. Yet even with a little knowledge, I am able to see certain facts which seem quite inconsistent with notions at present received. For my practice, I should be ashamed of myself if I guided it by any theories. Here the letter and spirit of the Liturgy is my direction, as it is of all classes of Churchmen, high and low. Yet, though I do not lay a great stress on such views as I gather from history, it is to my mind a strong confirmation of them, that they just account for and illustrate the conclusions to which I am led by plain obedience to my ordination vows.

L. If you only wish to keep to the Liturgy, not to change, what did you mean the other day by those ominous words, in which you suggested the need of a second Reformation?

C. Because I think the Church has in a measure forgotten its own principles, as declared in the sixteenth century; nay, under stranger circumstances, as far as I know, than have attended any of the errors and corruptions of the Papists. Grievous as are their declensions from primitive usage, I never heard in any case of their practice directly contradicting their Services;-whereas we go on lamenting once a year the absence of discipline in our Church, yet do not even dream of taking any one step towards its restoration. Again, we confess in the Articles that excommunication is a solemn duty of the Church under certain circumstances, and that the excommunicated person must be openly reconciled by penance, before he is acknowledged by the faithful as a brother; yet excommunica

tion, I am told, is now a civil process, which takes place as a matter of course at a certain stage of certain law proceedings. Here a reformation is needed.

L. Only of discipline, not of doctrine.

C. Again, when the Church, with an unprecedented confidence, bound herself hand and foot, and made herself over to the civil power in order to escape the Pope, she did not expect that infidels (as it has lately been hinted,) would be suffered to have the absolute disposal of the crown patronage.

L. This, again, might be considered matter of discipline. Our reformation in the sixteenth century was one in matters of faith; and therefore we do not need a second Reformation in the same sense in which we needed it first.

C. In what points would you say the Church's faith was reformed in the sixteenth century?

L. Take the then received belief in purgatory and pardons which alone was a sufficient corruption to call for a reformation.

C. I conceive the presumption of the Popish doctrine on these points to lie in adding to the means of salvation set forth in Scripture. Almighty God has said His Son's merits shall wash away all sin, and that they shall be conveyed to believers through the two Sacraments, whereas the Church of Rome has added other ways of gaining heaven.

L. Granted. The belief in purgatory and pardons disparages the sufficiency, first, of CHRIST's merits, next, of His appointed Sa

craments.

C. And by "received" belief, I suppose you mean that it was the popular belief, which clergy and laity acted on, not that it was necessarily contained in any particular doctrinal formulary.

L. Proceed.

C. Do you not suppose that there are multitudes both among clergy and laity at the present day, who disparage, not indeed CHRIST'S merits, but the Sacraments He has appointed? and if so, is not their error so far the same in kind as that of the Romish Church-the preferring Abana and Pharpar to the waters of Jordan? Take the sacrament of Baptism. Have not some denominations of schismatics invented a rite of dedication instead of Baptism? and do not Churchmen find themselves under the temptation of countenancing this Papist-like presumption? Again; there is a well known sect which denies both Baptism and the Lord's Supper. A Churchman must believe its members to be altogether external to the fold of CHRIST. Whatever benevolent works they may be able to show, still, if we receive the Church's doctrine concerning the means "generally necessary to salvation," we must consider such persons to be mere heathens, except in knowledge. Now would there not be an outcry raised as if I were uncharitable, did I refuse the rites of burial to such an one?

L. This censure would not proceed from the better informed or the rulers of our Church.

C. Happily, we are not as yet so corrupted as at the era of the Reformation. Our Prelates are still sound, and know the difference between what is modern and what is ancient. Yet is not the mode of viewing the subject I refer to a growing one? and how does it differ from the presumption of the Papists? In both cases the power of CHRIST'S Sacraments is denied: in the one case by the unbelief of restlessness and fear, in the other by the unbelief of profaneness.

L. Well, supposing I grant that the Church of this day is in a measure faulty in faith and discipline; more or less, of course, according to the diocese and neighbourhood. Now, in the next place, what do you mean by your Reformation?

C. I would do what our Reformers in the sixteenth century did: they did not touch the existing documents of doctrine-there was no occasion; they kept the creeds as they were; but they added protests against the corruptions of faith, worship, and discipline, which had grown up round them. I would have the Church do the same thing now, if I could: she should not change the Articles, she should add to them: add protests against the Erastianism and latitudinarianism which have incrusted them. I would have her append to the Catechism a section on the power of the Church.

L. You have not mentioned any corruptions at present in worship: do you consider that there are such, as well as errors of faith and discipline?

C. Our Liturgy keeps us right in the main, yet there are what may be considered such, though for the most part occasional. To board over the altar of a Church, place an orchestra there of playhouse singers, and take money at the doors, seems to me as great an outrage as to sprinkle the forehead with holy water and to carry lighted tapers in a procession.

L. Do not speak so harshly of what has often been done piously. George the Third was a patron of concerts in one of our Cathedrals.

C. Far be it from my mind to dare to arraign the actions of that religious king! The same deed is of a different nature at different times and under different circumstances. Music in a Church may as reverentially subserve the feelings of devotion as pictures or architecture: but it may not.

L. You could not prevent such a desecration by adding a fortieth article to the thirty-nine.

C. Not directly: yet though there is no article directly condemning religious processions, they have nevertheless been discontinued. In like manner, were an article framed (to speak by way of illustration,) declaratory of the sanctity of places set apart to the worship of God and the reception of the Saints that sleep, doubtless

Churchmen would be saved from many profane feelings and practices of the day, which they give into unawares, such as the holding vestries in Churches, the flocking to preachers rather than to sacraments, (as if the servant were above the Master who is LORD over His own house,) the luxurious and fashionable fitting up of town churches, the proposal to allow schismatics to hold their meetings in them, the off-hand project of pulling them down for the convenience of streets and roads, and the wanton preference (for it frequently is wanton,) of unconsecrated places, whether for preaching to the poor, or for administering sacred rites to the rich.

L. It is visionary to talk of such a reformation; the people would not endure it.

C. It is; but I am not advocating it, I am but raising a protest. I say this ought to be, "because of the angels," but I do not hope to persuade others to think as I do.

L. I think I quite understand the ground you take. You consider that, as time goes on, fresh and fresh articles of faith are necessary to secure the Church's purity, according to the rise of successive heresies and errors. These Articles are all hidden, as it were, in the Church's bosom, from the first, and brought out into form according to the occasion. Such was the Nicene explanation against Arius; the English articles against Popery; and such are those now called for in this age of schism, to meet the new heresy, which denies the Holy Catholic Church-the heresy of Hoadley and others like him.

C. Yes, and let it never be forgotten, that whatever were the errors of the convocation of our Church in the beginning of the 18th century, it expired in an attempt to brand the doctrines of Hoadley. May the day be merely delayed!

L. I understand you further to say, that you hold to the Reformers as far as they have spoken out in our formularies, which at the same time you consider as incomplete; that the doctrines which may appear wanting in the Articles, such as the Apostolical Commission, are the doctrines of the Church Catholic; doctrines which a member of that Church holds as such, prior to subscription; that, moreover, they are quite consistent with our Articles, sometimes are even implied in them, and sometimes clearly contained in the Liturgy, though not in the Articles, as the Apostolical Commission in the Ordination Service; lastly, that we are clearly bound to believe, and all of us do believe, as essential, doctrines which nevertheless are not contained in the Articles, as e. g. the inspiration of Holy Scripture.

C. Yes, and further I maintain, that while I fully concur in the Articles, as far as they go, those who call me Papist, do not acquiesce in the doctrine of the Liturgy.

L. This is a subject I especially wish drawn out. You threw out some hints about it the other day, though I cannot say you convinced me. I have misgivings after all, that our Reformers only began their own work. I do not say they saw the tendency and issue of

their opinions; but surely, had they lived, and had the opportunity of doing more, they would have given into much more liberal notions, (as they are called,) than you are disposed to concede. It is not by producing a rubric, or an insulated passage from the Services, that you can destroy this impression. Such instances only show they were inconsistent, which I will grant. Still, is not the genius of our formularies towards a more latitudinarian system than they reach?

C. I will cheerfully meet you on the grounds you propose. Let us carefully examine the Liturgy in its separate parts. I think it will decide the point which I contended for the other day, viz. that we are more Protestant than our Reformers.

L. What do you mean by Protestant in your present use of the word?

C. A number of distinct doctrines are included in the notion of Protestantism, and as to all these, our Church has taken the VIA MEDIA between it and Popery. At present I will use it in the sense most apposite to the topics we have been discussing, viz. as the religion of so called freedom and independence, as hating superstition, suspicious of forms, jealous of priestcraft, advocating heart-worship; characteristics, which admit of a good or a bad interpretation, but which, understood as they are instanced in the majority of persons who are zealous for what is called Protestant doctrine, are (I maintain) very inconsistent with the Liturgy of our Church. Now, let us begin with the Confirmation Service.

L. Will not the Baptismal be more to your purpose? In it regeneration is connected with the formal act of sprinkling a little water on the forehead of an infant.

C. It is true, but I would rather show the general spirit of the Services, than take those obvious instances which, it seems, you can find out for yourself. Is it not certain that a modern Protestant, even though he granted that children were regenerated in Baptism, would, in the Confirmation Service, have inserted some address to them about the necessity of spiritual renovation, of becoming new creatures, &c.? I do not say such warning has not its appropriateness; nor do I propose to account for our Church's not giving it; but is it not quite certain that the present prevailing temper in the Church would have given it, judging from the prayers and sermons of the day, and that the Liturgy does not? Were that day like this, would it not have been deemed formal and cold, and to argue a want of spiritual-mindedness, to have proposed a declaration, such as has been actually adopted, that "to the end that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it.... none hereafter shall be confirmed, but such as can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments," &c.; nothing being said of a change of heart, or spiritual affections? And yet, upon this mere external profession, the children receive the imposition of the